Not to mention the total lack of lore (I recall several instances where people's sphincters tightened in glee over the prospect of Tengu in various forums). Every update they just pull more and more out of their hindquarters. The RP forums have richer writing than the tripe being put out. Their writers are overpaid. It's not a high fantasy RPG, it's a flimsy town of Rock Ridge backdrop.

Which laughably brings up the cons of the temporary content they keep adding and then removing from the game.

If you can't add a new dungeon every time you retire one, you leave us with the same boring tripe we had prior to the content update. Welcome to the ArenaNet's _REGRESSIVE STORY!_

I'm so glad money is being put towards having nothing to do until they decide to turn on their next dungeon.

No lore? I'm sorry that you are choosing to not pay attention, but this LS is tied very strongly into GW1.

No lore? I'm sorry that you are choosing to not pay attention, but this LS is tied very strongly into GW1.

It's definitely better than the past updates, but right now it's hard to tell. For all we know they're just teasing it and then it's "Well I guess we'll find out more when the Zephyr Sanctum comes back next year."
I'm not getting my hopes up until I see it happening at this point.

Having tried it, the Sanctum Sprint is kinda fun as an occasional thing. The lightning pull bug is infuriating, when it hits you, though, although perhaps not as bad as when it hits you in Labyrinthine Cliffs and you fall to your death.

I love it. This is the best update they had. I know there are allot of people still hating the living story but there has to be a huge amount of people that are slowly changing their mindset.

I didn't read all the comments but guys think about it this way. They said they had 4 team working on the living story.

Dragon Bash + the Aetherblades was made by the first team(even if it isn't that doesn't matter). In the Dragon Bash & Aetherblade update was no lore & just a little bit of a story line.

We have the Zephyrites, who got incredible magic. You could say they learned this by studying the pieces of Glint they found. But if you think about it all those small pieces powering the whole Zephyrite Sanctum + it's people? It seems as if we're missing something.

They said the Aetherblades would be gone when the next living story would come. Are the gone? No they aren't. They have stated that the Zephyrites would only stay for a small amount of time and then fly of again. What if this is all part of not just a living story but part of a bigger whole? The Aetherblades could be planning a huge attack on the sanctum, trying to gain the power they use to make the whole sanctum fly (wich can't be done by small pieces of Glint). Other indications that they won't go away.

Where they are situated. Right above the Crystal desert. But why? Yes they just recently came from the crystal desert. But you can hear all the npc's complain about how dry the air is. Why not fly to the jungle? Were there is a higher humidity. It doesn't make sense.

The new PvP map: Skyhammer. This map has a clitch that if you manage to get out of it you fall onto a dessert like land. This is the same for the Zephyire Sanctum. This doesn't really make that much sense because if you look at for example Reach or the Mist. There's nothing beneath it, only water.

So after all these little pieces of info we got. I think we can begin to assume that the living story finaly becoming something we can look forward to. And that they finaly will have a bigger impact on the world of Kryta.

I like Bazaar of the Four Winds well enough for what it is. Its gorgeous, and I find the Zephyrites and their story interesting enough. Jumping puzzles aren't a priority for me in GW2, but I don't mind them; I had fun getting the sky crystals. I like the idea behind Living Story content, provided its really as frequent as they say (and so far, so good in that regard).

That said, I'm getting increasingly concerned about the nature of the content we're getting in Living Story chapters. Its worrying me that Anet seems to be focused on fun, lighthearted "festival"-style content when I want them to be moving the story forward. We have dragons left to kill and (please, Anet) other continents to explore. There's an awful lot of places with names on the map that have no explorable zones associated with them.

Then today this was posted in the Guru news stream, and I'm feeling quite a bit better.

I like the skills you get to navigate with in Labyrinthine Cliffs, even though it was frustrating to get used to them (all the deaths..) The ability to throw all excess materials to get stuff is nice, especially since I had tons on mats to give them right away.
At first I dreaded the Zephyr Sanctum, since I had skipped past pvp parts of living story (I sucked at snowball battles and dragon ball was just frustrating) but to be honest, I really like it now that I've gone ahead and tried it. While I tend to be idiot who runs at every single fake pickup I've had tons of fun with it, and even managed to win few times.
Overall, solid, fun update. Interest to see how the story progresses if at all. Hopefully this'll link us to Crystal Desert and Kralkatorrik but I somewhat doubt it.

Also, will this be yearly thing like wintersday or halloween? Seeing as it has been established that the gathering happens every year.

Do you have a source? I didn't run across anything mentioning that the crystals were Glint.

"I know now what great value there is in her crystal remains. Holding a portion of her in my hand, I was able to walk on the wind, ride the lightning, and channel the sun to my will. We will take her back with us and build a new sanctum where we can rise above the mundane violence of the world. There, we will foster peace and seed the crystals we make with touches of her magic, so that others too can experience her legacy."

"I know now what great value there is in her crystal remains. Holding a portion of her in my hand, I was able to walk on the wind, ride the lightning, and channel the sun to my will. We will take her back with us and build a new sanctum where we can rise above the mundane violence of the world. There, we will foster peace and seed the crystals we make with touches of her magic, so that others too can experience her legacy."

I will probably provide no new opinions here, so I can only reinforce already-made sentiments. I am not a jumping puzzle fan. I don't hate them, I just don't care to play that much platforming in what's supposed to be an MMO. I give them a lot of kudos for their creativity, especially in this update, toward giving the idea a try and willing to experiment, but it's never going to be my cup of tea. I will do something like that once or twice, mainly for rewards and achievements, but I don't find my fun drawn there. I want more permanent content, aside from the Living Story. I would like to many of the long-standing issues to be addressed. New is good, but making the old even better can make it new again. (That is probably a whole other thread's-worth of topic there.) In truth, the only part of the recent updates and added content is the achievement rewards. Finally, they are giving some bigger pats on the back for the loyal, long-term players. I have no solution on how to please everyone, but if the achievement reward system is a step in a direction they are going further with, good. I hope they can do both things. I hope Anet gets the money and resources for building a better game that people already love. I think the harshest critics are those that love this game and want it to flourish. It's a love bordering on hatred. Anyway, my rant is nearly over. I don't mind the casual things, the temporary goodies, the progress of a story arch, but I feel like even my laid-back and loyal nature is only increasingly being tested. I've spent money on this, and quite possibly more than I may have if it was a subscription game. I just wish it didn't always seem that Anet was ignoring things that are being said pretty loudly. I am often mystified at some of the stuff they decide to focus on. Are they afraid to put a timestamp on anything?

As I said, I have no ready solution, of course. I just care a little more than some about this game, so I feel they only deserve to be told somehow. It will start at places like this, if everyone cares and carries that idea and give it momentum.

The developers seem to forget what the game is and who are the majority of the playerbase. Mmorpg players. The game is an mmorpg. MMO RPG. So maybe they should make more combat-based, group-oriented content that would encourage cooperation on a higher level than uncaring dynamic events co-farming with just as little caring 'comrades'? Nah, why bother, they should just add more arcade, social networking and collection hoarding content.

Just, you know, because the combat system is not even that fun and engaging, the social aspect is underdeveloped across the board, all the content is repetitive and your progression is impossible to track because of the constantly resetting state of the open world and WvW alike. There are no real rewards, their 'cosmetic progression' is ridden with inequalities, catering to minorities and overall crappy looking gear that encourages nobody to 'progress' 'cosmetically'.

But nah, why bother with that serious stuff that involves delving into the depths of their combat system and monetization policies? Better add more random cash-purchased loot boxes, annoying jumping puzzles and weird-looking gear that screws their 'progression' and is basically unappealing for most players. (Although I do admit, the wind backpack item from the current event is rather nice. Which gives us one out of ~30 cosmetic items added that does not suck).

Not everything is THAT bad, of course, but the overall impression these updates leave is pretty grim. Nothing is done about existing problems that are also exacerbated by the gem shop issues. Nothing is done about the groups of players repeatedly getting the short end of the stick with every update, aka, the not so fans of the whole jumping puzzle arcade gimmick content. Every large-scale organized guild I know has long left due to the lack of any rewarding progression for such a guild and lack of any guild-sized content. Anet still do not care. Well, I wonder if it is time not to care about the future of the game anymore as well..

"I know now what great value there is in her crystal remains. Holding a portion of her in my hand, I was able to walk on the wind, ride the lightning, and channel the sun to my will. We will take her back with us and build a new sanctum where we can rise above the mundane violence of the world. There, we will foster peace and seed the crystals we make with touches of her magic, so that others too can experience her legacy."

To be strict, that doesn't say that the crystals we see are parts of Glint - they're infusing additional crystals they're making themselves with Glint's power, but from the reverence they hold for Glint and fear of what the unscrupulous might do with her power, I really doubt they're leaving parts of her body lying around for anyone to pick up. A better analogy might be software in the days of floppy disks - the original remains with the company (the Zephyr Sanctum in this analogy) while copies are distributed to the users.

I'm also inclined to suspect that the powers available from the crystals we collect along the cliffs are the merest tip of the iceberg. We see much more powerful manifestations of the aspects in the Sanctum Sprint, and that's still the stuff they're allowing outsiders to access for fun. The Zephyrites probably have stuff that's potentially a lot more powerful tucked away.

Just a friendly reminder about what is really going on in threads like this, in case there is any mystery. No one is here proselytizing. These aren't sermons on how such and such "really is" and how anyone else is wrong and must think this way. Let's get over that infantile defensive passive-aggressive tone to everything and discuss like people who realize all this is a bunch of pixels put into symbols we interpret as words, etc. That is what it is. No one should imagine any of this is hurting them or Arenanet in any way. If anyone has gotten annoyed or offended by my very posting of this and reading it, it is you I am talking about. If you are not immature and need a scolding, you can speed read and move on. That's what growing up can do for you and us all.

The real reminder is this: Arenanet has a lot of people to please. It is their game and their passion and their source of income and all that. It is in their interest to make the most people happy while making it financially viable, and so on. Duh, right? So, in anyone else's mind, what do you think all the evidence is showing to what crowd they are trying to provide their attention to currently? I didn't say forever. I didn't say it is their plan and they hope to ride it through or whatever. All that seems to be is that they have been catering to casual play. It has almost been a year. It is hard putting a traditional model for development on Guild Wars 2, to some extent, but as is clearly evident there is increasing impatience and it is squarely in the camp of the loyal, long-suffering lovers of MMORPGs and likely Guild Wars franchise specifically. And as I originally stated in my very first post in this forum and in this very thread, it is the ones that care most that are frustrated and critical the most. Thank you, carry on.

The achievements are silly. There are two for Sanctum Sprint, the bar set so low that we'll give you an achievement just for showing up X number of times, because you seem incapable of finishing a jumping puzzle that... despite being easier and more forgiving than those before, you still can't complete in an alotted amount of time.

It's okay to enjoy crap if you're willing to admit it's crap.Every patch is like ArenaNet walking out onto the stage of the International Don't Kitten Up Championship, and then proceeding to shiv itself in the stomach 30 times while screaming "IT'S FOR YOUR OWN GOOD! IT'S FOR YOUR OWN GOOD!"